Ted Winslow wrote: > I don't think this is so. On Marx's premises, > capitalist social > relations both facilitate and ultimately fetter the > development of > rationality. > > The continuing domination of production by M-C-M' is > domination by > irrational "passions." > Science and technology in their present forms also > continue to embody a > significant degree of irrationality. The social > relations within which > they've developed are incompatible with the full > development of > rationality.
I don't believe these "passions" are so much irrational as farcical. They give carefully constructed "right" answers to the wrong quetion. They are re-enactments of acts that were previously "heroic" (or tragic) and thus have been transformed into myth. People behave this way not out of irrationality, in the sense of impulsiveness or emotionally distraught, but because they find themselves in circumstances for which there is no precedent. The proper thing to do would be to improvise, instead they repeat. But they do it with deliberation and with "reasons" or even better, with rationalizations. "Men make their history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past." Watch and listen carefully and you may notice that it is precisely the improvisation, no matter how carefully considered, that is denounced as rash while the clumsiest mythic re-enactment is upheld as sound and prudent. There is too much design involved in the error to dismiss it as irrationality. The Sandwichman __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
